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Bitcoins reached a major milestone today, with a single coin now worth more than $1,000—which is pretty impressive, given that they started the month just a bit north of $200, the Washington Post points out. Bitcoin has soared to these heights in part thanks to praise from the Senate and the Fed. The prices represent a massive boon for early adopters; Bitcoin's lead developer famously bought 10,000 of them for $50 early on, which would today be a $10 million fortune.

It's worth noting that Bitcoin prices can vary substantially from exchange to exchange; the $1,000 price comes from Mt.Gox, the most popular exchange; the second most popular, Bitstamp, has them for $950. But at the New York Times, Adrian Chen (who takes credit for giving the currency an early boost) is skeptical that any of these high prices will last. "The crash is going to be great," he writes. "Bitcoin is too dependent on speculative mania to be of practical use as a currency." (Read more bitcoin stories.)

That's almost as volatile as FOREX. Its been fun betting against USD with bummer in office. You have to get in and out very fast though. I fear if we get a president less volatile than slubdumbo, it may not be so much fun watching USD take a dive on world markets.

joulesbeef

Nov 27, 2013 3:28 PM CST

its crashed before, no one cares, it will survive. The only problem with mining all the coins is to keep encouraging mining, which they will do with transaction fees. i'm not uneasy about it unless some country thinks it would be a good replacement currency because it isnt. It has neat features that future currencies can adopt, but right now it is more of a commodity like gold and a currency like the dollar.

DougMasters

Nov 27, 2013 2:19 PM CST

im not some sort of miser attached to the old fashion but does anyone besides me get uneasy about this fake-ish currency? something about it.....